Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Lords debate on treaty kicks off today

The House of Lords begins today its debates on the Treaty of Lisbon.

Anyone wanting a good, detailed and dispassionate analysis of the treaty would be rewarded by looking at the Report of the Lords EU Committee (here and here which goes through the treaty in considerable detail making an analysis of what impact it is likely to have.

Eurosceptics won't like it. Their views were given a good hearing by the Lords, who took evidence from Open Europe and several other anti-Europeans, but the Lords don't seem to have been impressed by their arguments.

I too gave evidence to the Lords and am pleased to see over 30 references in the first 80 pages of their report to documents I have written or to the oral hearing they held with me.

I am confident the that there will be at least as clear a majority for the treaty in the Lords as there was in the elected Commons, even if the minority opposing it will get the lion's share of the publicity to the extent that the media covers their debates.